Gautaman Bhaskaran: No place in civilised society for noose, needle or chair

COMMENT

State-sponsored killing cannot be condoned. It is as barbaric and brutal as the killing that an individual or a group of people may commit. Amrozi's death sentence for his part in the Bali bombing has brought this form of retribution under sharp focus. There is now a renewed debate on capital punishment.

Although most countries have abolished the death sentence, some continue to execute people. Saudi Arabia, for instance, uses capital punishment freely, China even more so.

While China and Japan are highly secretive about their gallows, Saudi Arabia and Iran make literally a song and dance out of their death sentences. Saudi Arabia carries out public beheading. Women guilty of adultery are stoned to death, often with the masses as witnesses. Iran sometimes hangs its convicts from construction cranes in public squares.

Timothy McVeigh's induced death in the United States was watched live by some, and by 300 others in a closed-circuit television broadcast. In a way, America is no less guilty than Saudi Arabia or Iran. And the US, which killed 85 people last year, fancies itself a modern, liberal state.

If the idea behind state executions is deterrence, those who believe in it cannot be further from the truth.

Amnesty International contends: "Capital punishment is a cruel, inhuman and degrading penalty. It violates the right to life. It is irrevocable, can be inflicted on the innocent, and it has never been shown to avert crime more effectively than any other form of retribution."

The world is coming around to accepting this, though slowly. Amnesty says about 75 nations have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, some 14 for all but exceptional misdemeanors, and about 20 can be considered abolitionists in practice because they have not resorted to it in 10 years.

About 86 countries still retain it, but the move against it is growing stronger. Chile finally said no some time ago. India has state executions, though only in the rarest of rare cases. The Supreme Court, the apex judicial body, holds that capital punishment does not violate the Constitution.

However, one of the judges, Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, ruled that such a verdict would be justified only if the criminal was dangerous to society.

But who is to decide this? Obviously the judge concerned. Justice Iyer contended that giving power to a judge to decide between a death sentence and life imprisonment on special reasons would go against Article 14 of the Constitution, which condemns arbitrariness.

There is an intense controversy over this in India and elsewhere. The plea to do away with the noose or the needle has found enormous sympathy and support, backed by scientific research.

This has failed to find convincing evidence that capital punishment prevents crime more effectively than anything else. A 1988 survey conducted for the United Nations concluded there was no basis to show that a "state murder" put greater fear into people's mind than a life in jail.

Perhaps advocating death under government supervision is as foolish as suggesting that stockpiling nuclear weapons acts as a safeguard. One remembers the BBC asking India's Defence Minister after the last big test a few years ago to suggest the number of nuclear warheads the country should have in its arsenal for the man to have a peaceful night's sleep.

You cannot stave off a crime of passion with any kind of law. Nor can you check a serial killer. You cannot stop a terrorist committed to a cause, because he has no fear of losing his own life. That was demonstrated on September 11, 2001. Will religious extremists be deterred by putting Amrozi to death? No. The deterrent hypothesis thus is quashed.

Worse, as long as a country has recourse to this law, the risk of sending an innocent man or woman to the gallows can never be eliminated. No human system is infallible. A 1987 study revealed that 350 people convicted of capital crimes in the US between 1900 and 1985 were innocent. Some of them escaped by minutes, but 23 were executed.

In India, though no probe has been made into this aspect, it is likely there has been such miscarriage of justice, given the state of the judiciary and the complexities of the society. In a nation ridden with caste, communal and religious disparities, and far from perfect policing, the chances of wilful conviction may not be exactly rare.

In the US, the death penalty was often termed "racist". Justice William O. Douglas said that capital punishment was for those without capital. India, where a third of its billion-plus population lives in extreme poverty, is probably a good example of what he had in mind.

Ultimately, nothing can be more ridiculous than the concept that preaches "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth". This notion has no place in civilised existence.

Does the world realise this? It may, at a certain level, which is usually the emotional. Arguments against the death sentence invariably arise when important cases are tried. Amrozi is a classic instance.

But we must rise above knee-jerk reactions, and understand that a modern society must continuously strive to resolve its dilemmas and contradictions with dignity - not through shortcuts like hanging and lethal injection.

* Gautaman Bhaskaran is a special correspondent for the Hindu, a Madras newspaper.